


Understanding

by Causa



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 18:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10837374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Causa/pseuds/Causa
Summary: Pearl didn't understand. She couldn't make her understand, Rose thought, because how can you understand a feeling?





	Understanding

Pearl didn't understand. Days of near-silence, shifting eyes and small pseudo-smiles piled up until she exploded in anger and tears and left. Rose didn't go after her immediately. She felt more revulsion than sympathy and that disgusted her. This was one of the few times she could recall Pearl not doing exactly as she wanted, exactly as she needed her to do. Maybe that was why she felt her stomach curling up inside her. Maybe she felt betrayed.

She went to see Greg before she went to Pearl. When she finally found her sitting on the edge of the cliff where they first fell in love with the pink sky that stretched and met the earth at the horizon she said nothing and put her hand on her shoulder; Pearl flinched.

"Can't go a day without seeing him, can you?" she said.

Rose said nothing, moved her hand to the small of Pearl's back.

"I smell him on you. We all do. He smells disgusting."

Rose laughed, rubbing Pearl's back. "I think he smells interesting."

"Of course you do."

"I think you smell interesting, too," Rose said, smiling, putting her head on Pearl's shoulder.

"I do _not_ ," Pearl said, scrunching her nose. "I don't want to have anything in common with him."

"Oh, my pearl," Rose said, sighing. "I really want you two to get along. When I'm gone—"

"Rose, please," Pearl said, voice higher and louder.

"Once I'm gone, I'll be counting on you to—"

"Rose," started Pearl, her voice cracking. "I don't want to talk about this."

"Pearl," said Rose, "we need to—"

"Why are you doing this?" shouted Pearl, rising. "I talked to Garnet. You don't have to do it like this. You don't even have to do it at all. I don't understand. I can't—I just don't understand."

Rose was silent for a while; it wouldn't be long until the sun went down. Pearl's eyes were on her, hungry and red and tear-filled. Rose felt pangs in her chest, felt her eyes growing wet.

"Pearl," Rose pleaded. What kind of monster, she thought, could hurt someone so much?

"I'm sorry," Pearl said, rubbing her arm jerkily across her swollen face, soon filling the silence with new sobs. Rose blinked her tears back.

"I just want to do something good, Pearl," she said. "I just want to do something with my time here."

"What?!"

But you've helped the Earth, helped Garnet, helped Amethyst, saved me, saved hundreds of thousands of the humans you love so much, Pearl said, more or less, through her tears.

Rose countered with the hundreds of thousands that lost their lives because of her war. Pearl said it was our war: everyone's war. But it never would have started without me, Rose said. Pearl had nothing to say to that, or was crying too hard to speak. Rose left the conversation feeling far more disgusted in herself than in Pearl.

Pearl didn't understand. She couldn't make her understand, Rose thought, because how can you understand a feeling? How can you put into words what makes humans so beautiful? How they're the opposite of us: how they take meaning instead of being given it, how they change instead of going against it, how they live from moment to moment even though their lives are so short? If she didn't understand that, how could she understand the great thing that Rose was doing?

What was better than a life on Earth? With its beaches, its buildings, its people, its sunsets and dark cloudless skies? To have no purpose but to enjoy it all. How she wished for that. How she wished she was brought into the world and let loose to live. She managed to free herself but not without the constant weight every day of the faces of those she knew she was responsible for. Her son wouldn't face anything like that, she thought, smiling; he would just exist, born with a clear mind in this beautiful town on this beautiful planet. What better gift was there? She could give it to him. No war, no destruction, no stares of those whose future depends on you, no glares from those whose future you ruined; only the wide eyes and smiles of the humans, carefree and happy.

There were Garnet and Amethyst. And Pearl. He would see them, too. She wanted him to see them, to know them, but not to be part of them—unless he wanted to. But she didn't want him to, she thought, and chuckled at herself. That wasn't her choice to make, and how lovely that was.


End file.
